MIAMI – The real questions now are, how long this can go? How bad this can get? How pitiful can this become?

Things aren’t getting any better with the Mets, and the more things change – pregame meetings, lineup switches – the more things stay the same. Another night, another game, another defeat. Yawn.

The losing streak’s at 10, the futility marked by a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding 15 defeats in 16 games. Fact is, with 25 games to go, the Mets are in danger of having about a terrible final quarter of the year as you can have.

The way they’re playing, not any time soon. Last night’s 7-3 loss to the Marlins was a microcosm of everything that’s been recent Mets – out-pitched, out-hit, out-fielded, out-played. They fell behind 5-0, had one hit into the seventh inning and let two runs score on errors. Bad, bad, bad.

The latest miserable figures? The Mets haven’t held a lead in 49 innings, and they’re 0-6 in September. Fortunately, they finally snapped an 0-for-36 skid with runners on base, thanks to Wilson Delgado’s seventh-inning double.

Meanwhile, at 60-77, they’re now behind last year’s last-place pace after 137 games (61-76).

“There’s no question we need to play better all the way across the board,” said Tom Glavine, last night’s starter. “You get to a point where enough’s enough and you’ve got to do something. What that something is I don’t know.”

Making matters potentially worse, Mike Piazza hurt his already-banged up left knee while fielding a liner to end the sixth inning. Piazza, who just spent time on the DL, remained in the game but said the knee is sore and was unsure whether he’d be able to play tonight.

“It’s par for the course,” he said. “It’s frustrating.”

Before the game, beleaguered manager Art Howe, whose seat isn’t getting any cooler, was asked if he believes his team is still providing maximum effort and insisted, “Oh, yeah. Any time a team’s not scoring, it looks lethargic,” he said. “It doesn’t really coincide with what’s going on.”

Glavine agreed, saying, “Guys are trying. We’re just not getting the job done.”

Desperate for anything to spark his stagnant club, Howe mixed up the lineup, moving David Wright up to the two-hole and sliding Piazza to the five-spot for the first time since Sept. 3, 2002.

It barely mattered. Reaching speeds of 99 mph, goateed righty A.J. Burnett worked a perfect first three innings and faced the minimum through 51/3 frames. The Mets have now tallied just six runs and 13 hits in their last four games.

Meanwhile, Glavine was banged around for five runs – four earned – in five innings, the big blow coming on Miguel Cabrera’s titanic, 471-foot two-run blast to center. That’s the longest blast by anybody at Pro Player Park this year.

The Met defense was porous also, as the Marlins scored unearned runs in the fourth when Danny Garcia threw away a relay And in the seventh, when Mike Cameron had a long drive kick off his glove. The furious Gold Glover slammed his hands against the padded wall in disgust.

“It just didn’t go in my glove,” Cameron said.

Before the game, Howe referenced the skid, saying, “This is the time that tests a man’s soul . . . We can play a role in who gets to the postseason.”

In that case, the Marlins should be playing in October.

Un-Amazin’

Tom Glavine and the Mets last night dropped their 10th straight game, a 7-3 loss to Marlins. Here’s a list of their longest losing streaks.